2011 Presenters
Lisa Abend
Lisa Abend is a journalist who has covered a variety of topics for publications including The Atlantic, Wired, and The Economist. Her first book is The Sorcerer's Apprentices, a profile of the young chefs at the legendary restaurant El Bulli.
Steve Almond
Steve Almond is the author of the New York Times bestseller Candyfreak and the forthcoming fiction collection God Bless America, among other titles.
Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez is a versatile writer, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies as well as essays, poetry, and books for young people.
Alicia Anstead
Alicia Anstead is Editor-in-Chief of Inside Arts magazine, a national magazine on the arts presenting industry. In addition to working as an independent arts consultant, Alicia teaches journalism at Harvard University's Extension School.
Tom Ashbrook
Host of NPR and WBUR's On Point, award-winning journalist Tom Ashbrook is also the author of The Leap: A Memoir of Love and Madness in the Internet Gold Rush.
Jabari Asim
Jabari Asim is a cultural critic and Editor-in-Chief of the NAACP's Crisis magazine and an associate professor of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College.
Sarah Bakewell
Sarah Bakewell is the author of How to Live: Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
William Banfield
William Banfield is a professor of Africana Studies/Music and Society and the director of the Center for Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music. He is the author of Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers and the forthcoming Representing Black Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again?
Rosalind Barnett
Rosalind Barnett is a senior scientist at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis and a practicing clinical psychologist. Her most recent book is The Truth about Girls and Boys, co-authored by her frequent collaborator Caryl Rivers.
Sandra Beasley
Sandra Beasley won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize for I Was the Jukebox. Her nonfiction has been featured in the Washington Post Magazine, and in 2011 she published Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales From an Allergic Life, a memoir and cultural history of food allergies.
Kate Beaton
Kate Beaton is a Canadian cartoonist who appeared on the comics scene with her online work Hark! A Vagrant, called by Webcomics Overlook "one of the best webcomics ever created."
Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is the author and creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For and the graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the guest editor of The Best American Comics 2011.
Homi Bhabha
Homi Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. His works on postcolonial theory include The Location of Culture, A Global Measure, andThe Right to Narrate.
Holly Black
Holly Black is the co-author, with Tony DiTerlizzi, of the bestselling series The Spiderwick Chronicles. Black's latest novels are White Cat and Red Glove, the first two novels in the Curse Workers series, which Publishers Weekly has called "powerful, edgy dark fantasy."
Bob Blumenthal
Bob Blumenthal has been the jazz critic for the Boston Phoenix and Boston Globe. He is the author of Jazz: An Introduction to the History and Legends Behind America's Music and Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins.
Jessica Bozek
Jessica Bozek is the author of The Bodyfeel Lexicon and several chapbooks. She teaches at Boston University and runs Small Animal Project, a reading series based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Robin Brenner
Robin E. Brenner is Teen Librarian at the Brookline Public Library in Massachusetts. Her guide Understanding Manga and Anime was nominated for a 2008 Eisner Award.
Stephen Burt
Stephen Burt is a professor of English at Harvard and the author of several collections of poetry as well as numerous books and essays on contemporary poetry.
Idit Harel Caperton
Idit Harel Caperton is the founder of World Wide Workshop, a foundation that develops open-source applications of social media and game technologies for disadvantaged and underserved communities.
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes is a cartoonist and author who created the comic-book series Eightball and the graphic novels Ghost World, Wilson, and Mister Wonderful. His newest graphic novel is The Death-Ray.
Jef Czekaj
Jef Czekaj is a cartoonist, children’s book author and illustrator, musician, and hip hop DJ. He is the author of three picture books: Hip and Hop, Don't Stop; Call for a New Alphabet; and Cat Secrets, which School Library Journal calls "a comedic gem."
Kenneth C. Davis
Kenneth C. Davis is the author of Don't Know Much About® History, which spent thirty-five consecutive weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and gave rise to the Don't Know Much About® series, which has a combined in-print total of some 4.7 million copies.
Allison DeBlasio
Allison DeBlasio (Mrs. Grymm), along with her husband Joey Marsocci (Dr. Grymm) run Dr. Grymm Laboratories, a custom prop fabrication and fine art business. Together they wrote 1,000 Steampunk Creations, and their second title, How To Draw Steampunk, will be published in October.
Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a debut novelist whose book, The Language of Flowers, has been called by Booklist "enchanting, ennobling, and powerfully engaging."
Norah Dooley
Norah Dooley is a popular storyteller and the author of the picture books Everybody Cooks Rice, Everybody Bakes Bread, Everybody Serves Soup, and Everybody Brings Noodles.
Lawrence Douglas
Lawrence Douglas is a law professor at Amherst College and author of the novels The Catastrophist and The Vices.
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is the author of the novel House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days as well as the highly acclaimed memoir, Townie, which the New York Times calls "a sleek muscle car of a memoir."
Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit From the Goon Squad, which also won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Her other books include The Invisible Circus, Look at Me, and The Keep.
Carlos Eire
Carlos Eire won the National Book Award in Nonfiction for his memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana. His newest memoir is Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy, which continues the story of his life in the United States after fleeing Cuba.
Maya Escobar
Maya Escobar is the Teen Librarian at Cambridge Public Library. She has participated in panel discussions sponsored by the Foundation for Children's Books. In 2011, she was named an Outstanding City Employee by the City of Cambridge.
Drew Gilpin Faust
Drew Gilpin Faust is the President of Harvard University. She is a Civil War historian and the author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, which was a finalist for both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
Joseph Finder
Bestselling thriller writer Joseph Finder is the author of Killer Instincts, Company Man, and High Crimes. Finder's newest novel is Buried Secrets, the second installment in his Nick Heller series.
Charles Bracelen Flood
Journalist and novelist Charles Bracelen Flood is the author of Grant's Final Victory, as well as other books about the Civil War, including 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History and Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War.
Susanne Freidberg
Susanne Freidberg, a professor of geography at Dartmouth College, has followed a variety of foods on their farm-to-market journeys around the world and published Fresh: A Perishable History.
Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander's recent books include the novel As a Friend, the book of poems Core Samples from the World, and the translation Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho (PEN Translation Prize Finalist), all from New Directions.
Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner is the author of Multiple Intelligences, Changing Minds, Intelligences Reframed, Five Minds for the Future, and his latest, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed. He is a professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Donna Garlough
Donna Garlough is Boston magazine's executive editor. She was formerly the food editor, the editor of the recently redesigned Boston Weddings, and a contributor to Boston Home and New England Travel magazines.
Regie Gibson
Former National Poetry Slam Champion Regie Gibson has lectured and performed widely in the U.S., Cuba, and Europe. He's been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, various NPR programs, and nominated for a Boston Emmy.
Leslie Gilbert-Lurie
Lawyer, teacher, and former executive Leslie Gilbert-Lurie is the author, with her mother Rita Lurie, of the memoir Bending Toward the Sun, which explores the Holocaust's legacy on three generations of their family.
Ethan Gilsdorf
Poet, teacher, critic, and journalist Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks as well as numerous pieces on travel, arts, and pop culture for a variety of publications.
Adam Goodheart
Adam Goodheart is a journalist, historian, and travel writer. He is a regular Civil War columnist for the New York Times. His new book is 1861: The Civil War Awakening.
Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor of law and history at Harvard University. Her book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History and National Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Gavin Grant
Gavin Grant is a science fiction writer, editor, and publisher of Small Beer Press. With his wife Kelly Link, he is the co-editor of the forthcoming Steampunk! An Anthology on Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories.
Stephen Greenblatt
Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt is the author of Hamlet in Purgatory, Practicing New Historicism, and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. His latest title is The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh's novels include Mrs. Kimble (winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award), Baker Towers, and The Condition. Her newest, Faith, has been hailed as "superb" (Publishers Weekly) and "expertly wrought" (The New York Times).
Sue Hallowell
Sue Hallowell, a practicing couples' therapist for more than twenty-five years, is the co-author with her husband, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., of the book Married to Distraction.
Laura Harrington
Novelist and playwright Laura Harrington's award-winning plays, musicals, operas, and radio plays have been widely produced in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Her new novel, based on her one-woman musical Alice Unwrapped, is Alice Bliss.
Chuck Hogan
Chuck Hogan is the author of Devils in Exile and The Killing Moon, as well as the novel Prince of Thieves, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film The Town.
Michelle Hoover
Michelle Hoover teaches writing at Grub Street and at Boston University, and her short fiction has been published in numerous collections and literary journals, including Confrontation, The Massachusetts Review, and Best New American Voices. Her latest novel is The Quickening.
Tony Horwitz
Journalist Tony Horwitz has written for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. He is the author of A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, Confederates in the Attic, Baghdad Without A Map and Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War.
Maisie Houghton
Maisie Houghton's debut is the memoir Pitch Uncertain, about growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 1950s. The New York Review of Books calls it "beautifully written" and "penetrating."
Ben Ryder Howe
Ben Ryder Howe is a former senior editor of The Paris Review. His first book is a humorous memoir titled My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store.
Susan Howe
Author of more than a dozen books of poetry and literary criticism, Susan Howe is the author, most recently, of That This, winner of Yale University's Bollingen Prize in American Poetry.
Michael Jackson
Michael D. Jackson is a postmodern anthropologist teaching world religions at Harvard Divinity School. His most recent work is Life Within Limits: Well-being in a World of Want.
Ha Jin
Ha Jin is the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting, as well as War Trash, The Bridegroom, Under The Red Flag, and Ocean of Words. His newest novel is Nanjing Requiem.
Michael Klein
Michael Klein is a professor of economics at Tufts University, and he has served as Chief Economist in the Office of International Finance at the U.S. Treasury. His most recent work is a novel, his first, titled Something for Nothing.
Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman is the author of Eating the Dinosaur; Chuck Klosterman IV; Killing Yourself to Live; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and Fargo Rock City, as well as many articles and essays. His latest novel is The Visible Man.
Joseph Koerner
Art historian Joseph Koerner is on the faculty at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he has curated numerous art exhibitions and written books on Caspar David Friedrich, Albrecht Dürer, the Reformation, and self-portraiture in German art.
Jane Leavy
Jane Leavy is the author of Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy and the novel Squeeze Play. Her writing on sports has been anthologized in several collections, including The Best American Sports Writing, a volume she's guest-editing in 2011.
Holly LeCraw
Holly LeCraw's debut, The Swimming Pool,was named a Best Book of Summer by The Daily Beast and Good Morning America, and was a 2010 Kirkus Top Debut. Her short fiction has appeared in Boston's own Post Road and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Ellen Levine
Ellen Levine has written several award-winning books for children and young adults, including Caldecott Honor Book Henry's Freedom Box. Her most recent YA novel is In Trouble.
Kelly Link
Kelly Link is the author of three collections of short stories, including Magic for Beginners. She co-edited, with her husband Gavin Grant, the forthcoming anthology Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories.
Bill Littlefield
Author and sports commentator Bill Littlefield hosts WBUR and National Public Radio's Only A Game. He was the guest editor for Houghton Mifflin's Best American Sports Writing in 1998, and he has been a commentator for National Public Radio since 1984.
Christopher Lydon
Christopher Lydon is the host of the Open Source Internet/radio conversation and was the founder of The Connection radio program. Lydon frequently contributes to such publications as The New York Times Magazine and The Economist.
James MacManus
James MacManus has been a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Guardian, based in France, Africa, and the Middle East. MacManus's first novel, The Language of the Sea, is set on Cape Cod.
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire's novels for adults include Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. His next novel, Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years, will be published on November 1.
Tom Matlack
Thomas Matlack is a former CFO and venture capitalist. In 2008, he and James Houghton founded The Good Men Project. Matlack and Houghton edited The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood.
Andrew McAfee
Andrew McAfee is a research scientist at MIT's Sloan School of Management and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. McAfee is the author of Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges.
Stephen McCauley
Stephen McCauley is the author of The Object of My Affection, Alternatives to Sex, True Enough, The Man of the House, and The Easy Way Out. His most recent novel is Insignificant Others.
Kim McLarin
Boston-based Kim McLarin is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Taming it Down, Meeting of the Waters, and Jump at the Sun. She is writer-in-residence at Emerson College and host of Basic Black.
Sugata Mitra
Sugata Mitra teaches educational technology at Newcastle University. He developed the Hole in the Wall Experiment, in which he embedded a computer in a wall in a Delhi slum to prove that children, regardless of education level, can teach themselves to use computers.
Frances Moore Lappe
Frances Moore Lappé is the author of Diet for a Small Planet and the co-founder (with her daughter Anna) of the Small Planet Institute. Her most recent book is Ecomind.
Peter Mountford
Peter Mountford's short story "Horizon" was included in Best American Short Stories 2008. His debut novel is A Young Man's Guide to Late
Anka Muhlstein
Anka Muhlstein has written about Proust, the Rothschilds, the Stuarts, and the explorer Robert LaSalle. Her new book is Balzac's Omelette: A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac.
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies. He is an assistant professor of medicine and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center.
Joan Nathan
Joan Nathan is the author of ten cookbooks, including Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France. She is a frequent guest on radio and television programs, including Today, Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, The Martha Stewart Show, and NPR.
Daniel Nayeri
Children's book editor and young adult writer Daniel Nayeri is the co-author (with his sister Dina) of the Another series. His new collection of novellas is Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow.
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association and co-founder and former director of the MIT Media Laboratory.
Mark Nieker
Mark Nieker is the president and executive director of the Pearson Foundation, the non-profit arm of international media company Pearson.
Danica Novgorodoff
Danica Novgorodoff is a writer, painter, photographer, and comics artist who lives in New York City. Her most recent graphic novel is Refresh, Refresh.
Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje is the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient, made into the Oscar-winning film. His other works include Divisadero, Anil's Ghost, In the Skin of a Lion, and The Cat's Table, to be published October 2011.
Michael Palmer
Award-winning poet Michael Palmer was educated at Harvard and now lives in San Francisco. His new book of poetry, Thread, covers a vast array of subjects, from language to war.
Joan Parker
Dean of American crime fiction, the late Robert B. Parker, said of his wife, Joan, "You wouldn't unerstand me unless you understand me and her." Joan Parker is a former education professor and was named Philanthropic Woman of the Year in 2000.
Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick is the governor of Massachusetts. His new book, A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life, is a reflection on his life thus far.
Amy Pattee
Amy Pattee is an associate professor at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Her book, Reading the Adolescent Romance: Sweet Valley High and the Young Adult Romance Revolution, was published by Routledge in 2011.
George Pelecanos
Best-selling crime novelist George Pelecanos was also a producer, Emmy-nominated writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series The Wire. His most recent novel is The Cut.
Sacha Pfeiffer
Sacha Pfeiffer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is currently the host of WBUR's All Things Considered. Pfeiffer's numerous awards for radio reporting include two Associated Press Awards and three Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Kathy Piehl
Kathy Piehl is a reference librarian at Minnesota State University Mankato, where she oversees collection development for children's books and directs the Center for Children's and Young Adult Books.
Henriette Lazaridis Power
A Rhodes Scholar and holder of a Ph.D., Henriette Power taught English literature at Harvard for ten years. She is the founding editor of The Drum Literary Magazine, an online literary magazine publishing short fiction and essays in audio form.
Lisa Randall
Lisa Randall is an expert on particle physics, string theory, and cosmology. Her most recent work is Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World.
Ladette Randolph
Ladette Randolph is the director of the nationally-renowned journal Ploughshares and a Distinguished Publisher-in-Residence in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing program at Emerson College, Boston. She is the author of the novel A Sandhills Ballad.
Chris Raschka
Chris Raschka has written and illustrated more than fifty children's books, including Caldecott Medal-winning The Hello, Goodbye Window. His newest work--his first novel--is titled Seriously, Norman!
Guy Raz
Guy Raz is the weekend host of All Things Considered on NPR News. He has been the recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Daniel Schorr journalism prize. His printed work has appeared in publications such as Salon, The Washington Post,The Christian Science Monitor.
Tim Riley
Tim Riley is the author of Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary; Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary; Madonna: Illustrated; and Fever: How Rock'n'Roll Transformed Gender in America. His new book is Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music.
Caryl Rivers
Caryl Rivers is a nationally known author, journalist, columnist, media critic, and professor of journalism at Boston University. Her latest book, The Truth About Boys and Girls, is co-authored with her frequent collaborator Rosalind Barnett.
Emma Rothschild
Emma Rothschild is a professor of history at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge. Her most recent work is The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History.
Karen Russell
Karen Russell is the author of St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. She was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and received the 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was released in February to rave reviews.
Richard Russo
Richard Russo has written seven novels, including Empire Falls, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Russo's short story "The Whore's Child," the title story of his only short story collection, is the 2011 selection for One City One Story.
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the investigative reporter for WHDH, 7News Boston. She is also the author of several award-winning crime novels starring Boston TV reporter Charlotte McNally.
Seth
Seth is the cartoonist behind the comic book series Palookaville, and he serialized the story "George Sprott: 1894-1975" in the New York Times Magazine. His newest work, The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists, is a fictional, yet historically based, account of the world of Canadian comics.
Glenn Stout
Glenn Stout is the author or editor of more than seventy books, including Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, Nine Months at Ground Zero, and Young Woman and The Sea. His most recent book is Fenway 1912.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the lifestyle editor at Yankee Magazine and former food editor of Boston Magazine. Her Apple Lover's Cookbook will be published in September 2011.
Dawn Tripp
Dawn Tripp graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts. Her novels include Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets.
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is on the faculty at MIT. She has pioneered the study of the psychology of people's relationships with technology. Her latest book is Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.
Linda Urban
Linda Urban is the author of the picture book Mouse Was Mad and the author of the middle-grade novels A Crooked Kind of Perfect and Hound Dog True.
Niobe Way
Niobe Way is a nationally recognized leader in the field of adolescent development and the author of Everyday Courage: The Lives and Stories of Urban Teenagers. Her most recent book is Deep Secrets: Boys' Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.
Richard Weissbourd
Psychologist Richard Weissbourd is on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and School of Education. He is the founder of city-wide literacy programs ReadBoston and WriteBoston and the author of The Parents We Mean to Be.
Thomas Whalen
Thomas Whalen is an associate professor of social science at Boston University. His latest book is When the Red Sox Ruled: Baseball's First Dynasty, 1912-1918.
Mo Willems
Mo Willems is a three-time Caldecott Honor winner for Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny, and Knuffle Bunny Too. His forthcoming book, Happy Pig Day!, is the latest in his highly successful Elephant and Piggie series for brand new readers.
Eugenia Williamson
>Eugenia Williamson is a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix, covering books, arts, and popular culture for the alternative weekly newspaper.
Michael Willrich
Historian Michael Willrich is the author of City of Courts. His most recent book is Pox: An American History, which PW calls "lucid" and "empathetic."
Meg Wolitzer
Meg Wolitzer is the author of the novels The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The Wife, and Surrender, Dorothy. Her latest novel, her first for young readers, is The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman.
Jeffrey Yang
Jeffrey Yang is the author of the poetry books An Aquarium and Vanishing-Line. He works as an editor at New Directions Publishing.
Robin Young
Robin Young brings more than twenty-five years of broadcast experience to her role as host of WBUR's Here & Now. She is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS, and ABC television.
Mitchell Zuckoff
Mitchell Zuckoff teaches journalism at Boston University and is the author of Ponzi's Scheme, Judgment Ridge, Choosing Naia, and, most recently, Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II.